


A Rose When It Bleeds

by maharieel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, The Joining, The Taint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8974063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharieel/pseuds/maharieel
Summary: She survives the Joining, but not the grief or pain.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a short and pointless image that i had to get down somewhere

It took hours before the life slowly started to resurface in her, almost so long that Alistair had thought her dead for sure.

He had been curled up on a cot in one of the makeshift tents set up for the Wardens, his knees brought to his chest as he flicked through a tome he’d snuck away from one of the mages. Page upon page of knowledge and instructions regarding a myriad of elemental spells and techniques; probably a rather interesting read to an apprentice, but he had never possessed any more magic than a common barn rat and half the words made his mind rattle. He wondered if the mage he’d slipped it from was missing it.

Stealing tomes hadn’t been his first attempt at passing time. He had attempted to get some shut-eye, but his ankles hung off the end of the cot, and the air tasted of dying flames and blood, and the nervousness pulsing through his heart had continued to drive his eyes open whenever he tried to shut them lest he miss something. Eventually he’d given up, content to read away the minutes as he waited for his charge to wake.

 _Maker,_ if _she wakes._

Alistair knew as well as any Warden the risks of the Joining; they’d lost one in his own and he had thought that was brutal. But to see two go so quickly, only to leave the third and final recruit a convulsing mess on the stones . . . they would surely be doomed if she didn’t pull through.

Something caught his ear over the numerous thoughts tearing through his mind, and Alistair turned just in time to catch her chest expand rapidly as a huge gulf of air tore through her. Tucking the tome away he swung his legs around and motioned at the bucket he’d placed beside her cot. “To your left by the bed,” he said, voice tighter than he’d thought it would be. “You’ll need –”

Before he could finish her stomach unleashed across her outstretched legs and the cot beneath. He stood as if offering her the bucket now would do her any favours. Instead he relinquished himself to standing awkwardly in the centre of the tent – head tilted slightly to avoid bumping the ceiling – as she emptied her innards all over herself and Maker, he had never felt so relieved in his entire life.

The air was consumed by her ragged gasps for air and the gnawing of his teeth for so long he almost lost track of the fact that he probably should have retrieved Duncan. His feet steered him towards her cot though in favour of the door.

“Are you . . .” he stuttered like a fool. “Can I get you anything?”

It took a moment more of gasping for her to reply. “Is this real?”

Alistair stared at her, mouth falling agape despite himself. It was only then he noticed the trembling in her hands and the way her eyes flickered along herself so fast he could barely follow along. Even when she swung her legs over the side of the cot to let the vomit slide down her calves, she seemed more concerned with the veins on the insides of her wrists than the fact that she was covered in her own spew.

“Uh . . . yes. Entirely. You were out for a while after the Joining, but you’re awake, which I suppose is good, right?”

Her gaze lifted, eyes showing more green now that the blackness of the taint had faded somewhat (strands of quicksilver still lingered in her irises, though) and he wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see there. _Happiness, relief?_ Instead he was hit with the feral anger that bled form her gaze like he imagined the infected blood had in her nightmares. He remained where he was despite the incessant voice in the back of his mind urging him to give the elf some space.

“So I live?” she asked, voice dripping with venom.

Alistair choked on his own saliva. “From what I can see, yes. Definitely alive.”

_“Fuck.”_

And with that she buried her head in her hands and let a string of elvish rip from her mouth. 

Concluding rather quickly that the current topic was not a good one, he turned and busied himself trying to find a rag or towel or _anything_ for her to clean herself. Eventually he found a rat-eaten cloth stuffed under his cot, but she barely gave it a second glance as she snatched it from his grasp and set about wiping herself down.

“Duncan will no doubt wish to know you’ve awakened,” he said, having found the strength in his voice again.

Her reply was a mere grunt.

He was left to stand awkwardly in the centre of the tent again, eyes occasionally catching on the lithe elven girl before him. _Girl, Maker she’s just a girl._ Considering her height alone she looked barely of age, with little features he had come to expect of women from his time surrounded by Chantry sisters. And yet the rest of her seemed almost to belong to a seasoned warrior who had traversed the world and return rather worse off for it. She was all foreign angles and scarred skin and animalistic fury and for whatever series of events had fashioned such a young girl into such a creature, Alistair had the sensibility not to ask. At least not then, with her shaking hands wiping her own vomit from her skin.

His eyes caught on her chapped and bloodied lips, so pale against her tanned skin, and wondered if they looked so horrific because of the taint or something else entirely. Other signs of the taint that she had carried long before sculling a goblet of blood a few hours previous still lingered elsewhere on her persons too. Her hair was nothing but a matted, dead mess of red; her veins still held a slight black tinge and her eyes . . . well the quicksilver remained. He absentmindedly wondered if she would always be marred by the sickness in such small portions, or if ingesting whatever concoction Duncan had forced at her would only worsen her condition. Ordinary Wardens barely scraped past thirty years after their Joining. He hated to think what being already-tainted inflicted on a person’s lifespan.

“Here,” she mumbled. Focusing his gaze Alistair quickly took the vomit-covered rag she handed him and threw it to the corner. He’d deal with it later.

He rubbed the back of his neck as she stood on unsteady feet before him. “So, I never actually got your name. I mean I got your surname but, well you know. I’d hate to have to call you Mahariel for the rest of your life. Unless that’s a Dalish custom, in which case you don’t have to tell me.”

There was a moment when he thought she wouldn’t tell him - _what a fool, what do you know of the Dalish -_  but then, barely audible over the commotion outside, “Lilah.” Her eyes dropped to focus on some invisible thing to his right.

He blinked, hand dropping back to his side. He was about to say something about how it suited her but she was already gone, eyes shimmering with unshed tears and anger as she stormed through the tent flap. Alistair made to follow, though when he pushed his way outside he could not, for the life of him, spy her ragged head of red hair through the crowd.

With a sigh, he realised he hadn’t even congratulate her on surviving when everyone else had fallen, not that she had seemed overly fond of the prospect. Honestly, he couldn't blame her.

**Author's Note:**

> she's a bit of a bitch to him at first, but only cause she's consumed by anger and grief and pain and too many emotions to process at once. she does get better at the whole 'being kind' thing eventually, i promise, once she figures out herself first.


End file.
